May 2, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
So Gary Ross is off of Catching Fire after not getting enough of a raise. Seems like a stupid move on his part. It’s not like the studio is going to say, “I guess we have to use Dennis Dugan.”
$$ is not the whole story with Ross–according to the Playlist he
1)also was not too interested in spending another bunch of years with the same material (his filmography show he likes to change up genres/types with each film)
2) he like the first book the best
3)he makes big $$ as a screenwriter so $$ is no issue
4 he can now focus on Outback with Carey Mulligan again
FREE LEX
Maybe the studio will take a chance and hire a director with a vision. Is ther a reason they’re not having a female director takcle this material? Ross is a fine screenwriter, but he has absolutely no distinctive visual style. THE HUNGER GAMES is one ofthe worst-shot watchable movies I’ve seen in years.
On a totally separate topic: I knew there was a reason why I didn’t get too emotionally invested in the Weinsten Co.’s battle with the MPAA. From day one I had a feeling Harvey was using the press and really didn’t care about fighting for reform. I was right. He blinked with the PG-13 cut of BULLY. He basically validated the MPAA.
Vanity Fair magazine – tv actress – 2 pictures and some quick videos ..
a lot of these actresses haven’t been done dp/30 ..
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2012/04/tv-issue-sofia-vergara-claire-danes
does anybody read Vanity Fair magazine ? they do the
oscar parties every year which gets a lot of big time actors ? they got better photos and articles and it costs
a dollar per issue … its part of the Conde Nast group of magazines … which kinda a look the same with all the ads…
would like a dp/30 with Conde Nast … are magazines dying ? they still seem to be around .
The INCESSANT camera movement in Hunger Games was NAUSEATING. It really is pathetic that this is now some kind of common “style”. It’s shit.
Bully should have had a PG-13 from the start.
Aaron is 100% correct about Ross and HUNGER GAMES. In fact, I’ve been loving this NPR review for awhile but still, I like HUNGER GAMES and it’s frankly so fast-food that I don’t feel like “defending” it enough to post this previously:
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/22/148941034/acting-trumps-action-in-a-games-without-horror
And serious KUDOS to Harvey Weinstein and BULLY for putting it in the conversation. Every day. For 2 months. Damn….what is that movie even? A $100,000 doc about an everyday occurrence that Harvey made worth something. The smartest move those filmmakers made was getting Weinstein on their side.
kbx… I believe the Playlist story to be a 98% bullshit plant by Team Ross.
“Five people have been arrested in southern China after a teenager sold his kidney so he could buy an iPhone and iPad, state media have reported.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17640209
If you know anything about those next two books. There’s no way Ross’ direction would have worked for those two movies. Now Aaron brings up a female director and Lexi Alexander has been made to direct these films. If they don’t hire a woman, especially a talented action director Lexi Alexander, then they are missing out. Hell, I doubt they would do it due to wanting to keep it on the cheap, but Kathryn Bigelow would probably direct the shit out of those next two movies.
Oh yeah, Ross came closest to mimicking the awesomeness of Paul Greengrass’ shaky cam work in Bloody Sunday. The action also could not be direct because once again YOU CAN’T GANK KIDS STRAIGHT UP ON CAMERA AND EXPECT THE MPAA TO GIVE YOU A PG-13!
I am always rooting for Will Smith, but is ANY ONE really jazzed to see Men In Black 3??? I have a feeling the movie is really going to underperform….the trailers have been blah at best. I don’t get the sense there was really a pent-up demand for a 3rd MIB movie….then again, I would have said the same thing about a 4th Mission Impossible movie but it looks like Paramount found their hook for that one. Is there any real hook for this???
Lex… the funny thing about your “freedom” is that you were taken off “moderate” and then Ray had to pull 4 of your posts for being obscene. So you went back on.
Someone in here may care what you’d like to “do” to Rooney Mara, but I do not and I don’t care to subject everyone else to your sexual whims. It’s that simple.
You love it, DP. Just admit it.
(tears up draft of what he’d like to do to Sofia Vergara)
(Erases post about what he’d like to do to Helen Mirren.)
watched the entire season of i just want my pants back – mtv .
– Kim Shaw is a star – i want dp/30
check her twitter
http://twitter.com/#!/itsmekimshaw
– the background / guest actors are pretty good –
not big stars either . better than most tv shows
– the most annoying thing is the constant music in
the background
– it’s not the usual mtv reality stuff they usually show..
this could have easily gone to fx / hbo / showtime with
an extra 10 minutes ….
– a few episodes have really good camerawork – they shoot
outside NYC a lot ….
Titanic SUPER 3D – funny parody
1 minute video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJxj1mou03M
(tears up draft of what he’d like to do to Sofia Vergara AND Helen Mirren, with Leydon watching enviously)
That’s just so worng.
OK, it’s a holiday weekend, so let’s have a holiday weekend question. Everybody has a favorite movie of the 1970s. Mine is The Hired Hand. What’s yours?
‘beyond the valley of the dolls’… it went on to be the first vhs movie i ever bought ($98 back in the day…and, i still have it)… hands down, one of the most audacious, ridiculous and subversive movies of its time….so bad it was good (but, still bad)….
I’m going to be boring as hell and go with Apocalypse Now. It’s one of the few movies that has never lost any bit of potency from multiple viewings. It’s simultaneously one of the most beautiful movies and one of the most horrifying movies I’ve ever seen, if that makes any sense.
Joe L.: BADLANDS is probably the better movie, but I’ll go with AMERICAN GRAFFITI as my 70s fave. I’ve seen it many times, and it was a key inspiration for my pursuit of a screenwriting career. I even managed to meet Paul Le Mat a couple of times, and I wrote a show that Mackenzie Phillips starred in (oh, and I can be seen for about three seconds in THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS, playing Lucas in a clip from a friend’s short).
I love BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS more and more every time I see it. I know the editing would keep the kids today glued to the screen. It’s staggering to think that Fox nabbed Russ Meyer to make that film. Even John Simon was entranced to a degree. And it was a huge hit for the embarrassed studio. But where’s the love for Meyer’s Fox follow-up, THE SEVEN MINUTES? In fact, where is the film at all?
hey Joe – can you hook me up with free ticket to tiff 2012 ? i’ve never ever been to half the theatres so it would be
like disneyland …which i also never have gone too .
is there some sort of movie critic that gets 1000 tickets and gives them away on random street corners ?
Barry Lyndon is my favorite of the 70s.
Unquestionably Blazing Saddles.
Lionsgate would never hire Alexander to direct Catching Fire. The two sides have worked together once before and didn’t get along during the making of Punisher: War Zone.
“The Last Picture Show.”
I’ve always described it to my class as “The Great American Movie” in the same way that “The Great Gatsby” is routinely labeled “The Great American Novel.” Or, as one wag opined at the time, it’s “the French New Wave movie John Ford never made.”
Probably seen “TLPS” a hundred times since its original release and have never grown tired of it, although I do wish one of the (countless) dvd copies I own included the 1971 release print. For my money, none of the scenes added in the “director’s cut”–the only available version of the film today–seem anything more than gratuitous.
I’m gonna have to go with BREAKING AWAY just in terms of nostalgia and the fact I’ve seen it 500 times. Oh! Or ROSEMARY’S BABY!
Young Frankenstein.
Baffling choices. Best films of the 70s are, without a doubt, Godfather, Exorcist, French Connection, Taxi Driver, Deer Hunter. There is no coherent way anyone could debate these top 5 masterpieces.
Oh jolly, I think the tea is being served. Be sure to extend your pinkie while you drink!
Best: NETWORK. Favorite: BLAZING SADDLES. (Still most underrated: EMPEROR OF THE NORTH [POLE].)
i’m still wating for DP to get some hard to find people like Sarah Palin and Banksy for dp/30 + at least a dozen
other people ..
it’s mostly the documentaries that have no real endings and are still ongoing that interest me .. mountaintop removal –
New Orleans – even CNN forgot about that and they sorta owned that story – fracking …
i say DP picks a place with real problems and goes there for 5 days and grabs as many interviews as possible .
i’m not expecting DP to fix any of these problems just have people with different views.
the last major update was revenge of electric car doc – now cars run on batteries and the earth is saved.
we don’t have to worry about oil anymore. done.
Don: ROSEMARY’S BABY was 1968.
arisp: Joe asked for favorites, not bests. And of course any choice is absolutely open for “coherent debate.” I like all the films you mentioned, but wouldn’t rank all of them above BADLANDS, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, WANDA, THE EMIGRANTS, THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH, CHINATOWN, NASHVILLE, SHAMPOO or even THE GODFATHER PART II. BREAKING AWAY, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, OPENING NIGHT, THE LACEMAKER, DON’S PARTY, THE GARDEN OF DELIGHTS, DAWN OF THE DEAD, MANHATTAN, THE CONVERSATION, SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE, CHARLEY VARRICK, etc., etc. I mean, this decade’s not too shabby, you know?
And thank you cadavra for getting what I was hinting at. Sure, arisp’s films might be the “best”, but I sure as heck wouldn’t want to see them a) again or b) ever.
I think the prize for “Best film that I never want to watch again” for me is Once Were Warriors. Not a 70s film, but still…
My two favorites of the 70’s are ANNIE HALL and STAR WARS. On some days tho it might be THE LONG GOODBYE or HAROLD AND MAUDE or NETWORK or…
“Yes, animals were harmed: 21 films and TV shows that killed or hurt animals” (listed on the front page at http://www.avclub.com/articles/yes-animals-were-harmed-21-films-and-tv-shows-that,72051/ ) contained a whopper in the first entry that took hours to correct (all they did was swap “direct current” for “alternating current”), yet the entry is still a mess because the writer failed to do basic research, and failed to wonder why Edison’s people traveled around the country electrocuting animals for public entertainment.
Edison (or more likely one of his underpaid serfs) invented DC, which was great for batteries but lousy for long-distance power distribution (transformers were needed every couple hundred feet and they had a tendency to blow up). Tesla, however, through Westinghouse, invented AC which was the far superior choice. Edison hated the thought that he might actually lose this battle so he had his people put on public demonstrations to show just how dangerous AC was by having animals “Westinghoused”. He even came up with the idea of electrocuting convicts as a more “humane” alternative to hanging; of course they would be “Westinghoused” as well.
To bring this back to movies, the commenter who started the revolt added “Yes, Edison was an even bigger dick than you were led to believe in The Prestige.”
1970’s movies I’ve watched the most: Star Wars or Disney’s Robin Hood. Other favorites include Young Frankenstein, Monty Python’s Grail and Brian movies, and Superman.
Best: Godfather, Network, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Apocalypse Now, A Clockwork Orange, American Graffiti, Deliverance, The Sting, Chinatown, Jaws, Dersu Uzala, Badlands, Nashville, Deer Hunter… what a good decade.
huge rant by Ashley –
Ashley Judd Slaps Media in the Face for Speculation Over Her ‘Puffy’ Appearance
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/09/ashley-judd-slaps-media-in-the-face-for-speculation-over-her-puffy-appearance.html
everybody here have an instagram ? my guess is this
will lose money and we can end up with social network 2.
Facebook says it will spend $1 billion to buy the popular photo-sharing software company Instagram. It’s Facebook’s largest acquisition to date
As I was trying to pick between Used Cars, The Jerk and Airplane, I looked and saw all came out in 1980. Monty Python Holy Grail would be way up there but it wasn’t until the 80s that I saw it. My favorite, not necessarily what I think was the best…still can’t say. Young Frank, but again, didn’t see it until the 80s for the first time. Not that would otherwise matter but to keep proper perspective, I’d like to go w/what I thought at the time. I’d narrow it down to Smokey & The Bandit, Silver Streak, The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, The Rescuers and Heaven Can Wait.
Correction, the Jerk was released in Dec of ’79. No idea what month it was when I saw it. I guess it goes in the 70s movies. The Jerk, FTW!
blockbuster and netflix .
http://i.imgur.com/2aA9F.jpg
1980 is the last year of the decade of the ’70s, so The Empire Strikes Back qualifies as well, which ranks second only to Young Frankenstein on my most-watched movies of the ’70s list.
Now Sam has gone and done it. All of those people who get pissy about when decades in, are going to get all pissy and it’s going to get insane in here! YOU SEE WHAT YOU DID SAM? YOU SEE WHAT YOU DID XD?
I said the ’70s, not “the decade,” so 1980 doesn’t count. But 1970 does. So for those of you who want to designate Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, or Five Easy Pieces, or MASH…
It’s a fair cop, since even the thematic ’70s starts with Nixon’s resignation and ends with Reagan’s inauguration.
banned?
banned